Blog articles from 09/2008

Primetime programming is still the cornerstone for advanced television features, which will increase service provider revenues and reduce customer churn, according to Parks Associates’ TV 2.0: The Industry Perspective. This new report indicates over 50% of U.S. broadband households find on-demand primetime services appealing, putting these offerings at the top of the list of advanced television features that includes VOD libraries, multiroom DVR, PC-TV connectivity, and informational...

One of the significant trends we reported for the online video space in our Internet Video: Direct-to-Consumer Services: Second Edition report was the consolidation that is occuring with companies in the online video content and ad delivery space. Since one of the key strategies employed in the past couple of years of online video delivery has been to widely syndicate content across multiple Websites, this has led to the emergence of a class of companies implementing what we call...

New applications and consumer demand will push installed base to 60 million in 2012 -- Consumer demand for intelligent control applications will push U.S. revenues for wireless and powerline controls from $740 million in 2008 to over $3 billion in 2012, according to Opportunities for Wireless & Powerline Controls. This new report forecasts the installed base for these technologies will skyrocket to nearly 60 million in 2012, thanks in large part to key players entering...

I'm in San Jose busy preparing for tomorrow's Parks Associates workshop so I've missed all the live action in Austin. Many interesting articles based on various speeches and panels have been published by Gamasutra and other sites. One that caught my eye is on Min Kim's speech on the Free-to-Play market in the U.S. I've heard rumors about Nexon's U.S. revenue for a while now and Min Kim went on record to confirm that Nexon's 2007 revenue in the U.S. was indeed $30 million, compard to...

In a public move, Samsung offered $26 per share to acquire SanDisk and add flash memory manufacturing to its repertoire. With the patents on flash memory technology that SanDisk holds, Samsung currently pays over $350 million in annual royalties, but by purchasing SanDisk, Samsung would no longer pay the costly fees and be more closely tied to the products using its chips. SanDisk did not feel that Samsung was adequately assessing the company’s value and declined the offer. However, it...

According to 17173, a Chinese technology news website, and several other Chinese websites, Hurricane Ike just landed on China's 3D virtual world market. China Telecom, the largest telecom operator in China, with more than 40 millon broadband subscribers and more than 210 million local access lines, announced that it will collaborate with Shenzhou Hengji (a fully-owned subsidiary of Enreach Technology) and build a 3D virtual world called ChinaQ. This is significant news, especially since...

Parks Associates will host a research workshop featuring key members of its analyst team on Thursday, September 18, at the San Jose Fairmont. The Business Cases for New Media will focus on the impact of advanced connectivity on business strategies for service and content providers, CE and hardware manufacturers, and software developers. The workshop features Parks Associates’ Kurt Scherf , Vice President, Principal Analyst; Yuanzhe (Michael) Cai, Director, Director, Digital...

Last night, as I was watching a movie on Hulu, my browser crashed. Instead of restarting and cueing the movie back up, I just turned off my computer and went to sleep. Why not finish the movie, some of you may ask? I feel that Hulu is trying to become profitable before it has completely baked its product, thus putting the cart before the horse. Last night, the ads precluded me from tuning back in. The most egregious offenses included: Inserting the same ad for every pod...